Coal: China vs Germany

China’s economy continues to drive ahead powered by coal. They consume 50% of the world production. The use the cheap electricity produced by burning coal to manufacture inexpensive goods and then sell them all over the world.

Germany, on the other hand, has chosen to use cheap electricity to subsidize wind turbines and solar panels.

“At the center of Europe’s coal renaissance is the region around the German-Polish border, already home to five of Europe’s most polluting coal plants, says the report, which was compiled by CAN Europe, WWF, the European Environmental Bureau, the Health and Environment Alliance and Climate Alliance Germany. Swedish power firm Vattenfall GmbH is now planning to expand the number of open-cast mines in the Lausitz area to exploit its deposits of lignite, a particularly polluting type of coal.

Vattenfall says the Lausitz mines, with their vast deposits, are there to take up the slack when renewable energy sources fail to meet Germany’s needs. “Without flexible and reliable brown coal, we wouldn’t be able to provide stable electricity supplies at stable prices,” the company says on its website.”